Truth of a Liar
by Ashida
Summary: The truth hurts, but denial's what will kill you.


Something a little different from me, dark is fun once in a while. I need to do it more often.

People are wanting updates for my ongoing stuff, but I don't have the time nor motivation to concentrate on them right now, I am working on finishing them all in one go to get it over and done with, consider them all on hiatus until further notice.

Credit to one of my fav bands August Burns Red for the Title and Summary which comes from their song Truth of a Liar.

* * *

Fuck. This was not the right scoop.

Akihito knew the moment he saw _Asami_ walk through the wide open doors of the tin warehouse he was currently hiding in; tucked away on one of the container shelves with his long range lens under a cloak of moldy shadows.

It was all silhouettes and sepia tones in the dank scene of the industrial building, a carnival of rust, a collection of grime, hues of the underworld with nothing that could be painted innocent.

If it were anyone else, Akihito wouldn't have been able to make out the person through the obscurity, that's what his camera was for; prolonged light exposure could render anyone in his viewfinder guilty – but the way darkness seemed to jump from the corners of the building, rattle around in celebration at the new arrival as if exulting him, the smooth cadence of his footstep as it clacked on the irregular concrete, the ethereal glow of a floating ember on the end of a cigarette, the intimate scent of a Dunhill that caressed his nostril as its tendrils of smoke spread their fingers, Akihito knew it could be no one other than him.

Fuck.

This was not what he wanted, _ever._ Akihito didn't need this scoop anymore, because he'd learnt long ago that ignorance was indeed bliss, and he didn't _want_ to know the truths hidden in the many lies of the abyss.

And now, with the cold container underneath pressing against his elbows and bleeding through his body, his vantage point on the _opposite_ side of the room to the pair of open doors where light from the smog oppressed night sky shone through; now, he had a feeling he was going to find out, the hard way.

* * *

It started with two people being brought, no, _dragged_ in, with that stereotypical sack around their head and the cable tied wrists and ankles, that he could have handled, it'd happened to him after all, but the reflective trail of piss and cold sweat in their wake on the moonlit concrete gave it too much detail for Akihito, it smelt of horror and panic, and it sounded like _'I'm sorry Asami sama, I won't betray you again'_ , and _'please god, no'._

It sounded like nothing he'd ever heard before, and he'd much prefer the smell of chloroform and sedatives than the scent of impending brutality. Oh, how he was grateful now for the darkness of night so that he couldn't see it all with the clarity that his prized viewfinder was renown for. Fuck that.

But he could still see enough, like having your biggest fear in front of your face; you _couldn't_ will yourself to look away, because if you lost sight of your fears then you'd never know where it might ambush you next, and you'd only add paranoia to your phobia.

And so like watching the most gruesome train wreck and slowly making out the wreckage; his eyes adjusted to the gloom and he was faced with regret and revulsion; because he should have fucking looked away when he had the chance.

The sound of his ignorant heart beat over the questioning, all thumping white noise like he was drowning underwater, only the shrillest of screams pierced the veil, or the lowest of sobs that resonated through the very ground and back up the container walls to find him.

He saw the moment that glowing ember was stubbed out on someone's forehead, and with that last shred of light extinguished the darkness finally took over, and despite that, he could still fucking see _everything_.

Lips that kissed him with thirst and hunger, a mouth that whispered sweet nothings in his ear and flashed an occasional snapshot of a sparkly-toothed smile in his direction were currently smirking with a heartless lilt that spoke of unvoiced enjoyment and satisfaction.

Eyes that he knew for their warmth and expression were now void of humanity, a manic shade of gold that took over from that solo cigarette cinder.

Hands that touched him, tenderly, _gently,_ hands that made him feel safe and _whole_ were currently acting in the opposite.

Asami had shrugged off his suit jacket like he'd just come home from a hard day at the office and was about to unwind, he'd unclipped his watch in silence and given it to Kirishima like a well versed routine, pulled his tie down a few inches and bunched his sleeves at the forearm – the picture of Asami that Akihito so loved, if it weren't for this new demeanor that he'd never wanted to see, if it weren't for those hands wrapped around the handle of a well used baseball bat.

Truth after truth rang out with the snap of bones, ones that he knew and had chosen to remain unconscious of, he knew the underworld crawled in terror of Asami's wrath, heard details of what happened to those who abused his trust that he never gave without a price. This was the price.

A splatter of blood on Asami's well defined cheek, the breathlessness of sex and _pleasure_ that heaved his chest, a freshly lit Dunhill pursed on one side of those lips with a smirk on the other. A price Asami seemed all too happy to collect.

The years had been good to them; they had this equilibrium of half truths and blind eyes to the others choice of what they did for a living. All this was why he'd chosen to steer clear of any story involving Asami, because he'd never envisioned the monster that lurked under his very bed had in fact been sleeping next to him the entire time.

To the photographer, that person down there with a pair of reapers on his flank wasn't Asami; the person he'd shared a house with for years, the person who'd unraveled him and put him back together again more times than he could count, the person who set up fireworks on the balcony or onsen trips in the spring.

This person was murder made flesh and everything that incited terror and panic, it crawled up your throat and blocked your airway, scared the blood from your brain and left you lightheaded with no will to escape.

Akihito couldn't say when he passed out from the nausea, after how many metallic cracks of the bat as Asami swung like he was a beast in a batting cage, after how many muffled begs for mercy, and how many sneers that Asami gave them in return with those eyes that had a monster in their depths.

All he could think when the tunnel vision claimed him and the fuzziness took over; was that he was glad, because passing out was the only way to escape the truth.

In his welcomed oblivion, he was unaware of being pulled down, cradled in arms that had been cleansed of their deeds and were back to those hands that he knew so well.

* * *

He woke with splinters in his back and that familiar scent of Dunhill cloaked around him in the form of Asami's woolen jacket.

Proof solidified fear, and that's all Akihito felt as he forced his eyes open and was hit with the silhouette of Asami standing over him in front of the wooden crates, in the warehouse still. Blood stained and relaxed, he had his leather holsters on and the bat was nowhere to be seen, but the nauseous flash backs only made his head spin and panic well, never had he wanted to run from Asami this badly.

The unrefined wood under his palms ripped at his skin as he tried to scrabble backwards, _away._

"S-stay away." His croak was weak, pathetic, it was what being taken over by fear did, because he realized he'd never truly been afraid until now.

But if he'd been paying attention, or been actually capable of processing his surroundings, like noting the way _someone_ would have had to bring him down from his hide out point and take the time to soil a suit by draping the expensive jacket over his sweat stinking body; taken time to notice the corpses gone and the blood sloshed away only leaving the smell of metal in its place; then he would have seen the edge of worry pursing Asami's brows as he looked upon Akihito.

However, all he saw was Asami's eyes sharpen on him at his cowardice, because that's what it was.

The exasperate sigh that left Asami's lips in impatience and tetchiness had him quaking, his nails shredded the wood, peeling back as the splinters dug themselves in further.

"Get up, Akihito." The snapped order, devoid of all the composure Asami normally wore; strung him up on his feet in an instant.

He'd been lucky to live until now, Akihito's mind raced around the notion as his undoing stalked closer, if this was what Asami was really capable of, the amount of times Akihito fucked up, made a mess for him and led him on a goose chase, then it was a surprise he wasn't dead yet, sleeping the eternal sleep in Tokyo bay like all those before him.

Maybe this was the last straw, maybe he finally knew too much, because Asami had that shadowed look on his face, the betrayed snarl on his mouth and the glare in his eye that said he was anything but pleased right now.

"Is this how you react to me now, Akihito?" the voice tolled anger as the distance was closed, pressed against the cold steel wall of the warehouse; there was no chance of flight, all he could do was look down at the concrete floor with cracks and crevices that he might be able to crawl into. "Look at me."

 _Escape._

All chances of that were taken, whisked away with no hope in sight as a vice gripped his throat and pinned him against the tin, tight enough to wheeze his breath and speckle his vision, if it weren't for the strength in the hand holding him up his shaking knees would have collapsed back down to the concrete.

"Look at me!" came the boomed frustration.

Through the stars in his eyes and the violent tremors of his heart he met a gaze of lunacy, confliction and _hurt._ Akihito didn't understand, and he never had.

"Is that how you really look at me now, Akihito?!" the hiss raised the hairs on his neck as the constrict around the ball in his throat tightened. "You look at me like this when you've _known_ the truth all along?" vehemence and intensity held him captive and speechless as he was pushed further up the wall.

"P-please, Asami."

"Please what, Akihito? Please don't cave my skull in for betraying me as they did, please don't cut their fingers off and feed them to the fish for leaking intel on my business as they did? Did you do any of those things?"

Because that sort of notion to him even now could have him bristling, his answer was instant. "No!"

There was no respite from the next barrage. "Then what is it, please don't hurt me for betraying my trust, please don't kill me for plotting to kill _me,_ as they did?!"

Asami's wavering voice kept growing in volume, the fingers on his throat digging crescents into his neck as the limb shook with something Akihito couldn't recognize. Psychopathy, blood lust, he had no idea, all he knew was that he was fucking afraid.

"Please… don't hurt me." He managed to gasp out breath by breath.

The shaking steadied as Akihito was lowered down to earth once more, feet on the ground but still pinned in place as a desolate Asami looked at him.

"After all these years, you think I could _truly_ hurt you, Akihito? _You_ think that I could do to you, what I did to them? You think I could bring myself to fucking kill you?" the question hung in the air full of malcontent and discord as it echoed through the building, the shadows shrank back at the verbal blow, just as Akihito flinched with his own now contradictory thoughts. Asami was offended.

"Don't hurt me you ask, I should be the one saying that." As fast as it'd come the pressure around his airway vanished, pulled back as if scalded. Asami turned his back so fast that Akihito couldn't see the plead in his eyes, instead he crumpled to the ground in a pile of limbs as Asami lit one up and sat on the scratchy wooden crate and bared his back to the photographer.

"You've known what this was from the beginning, Akihito. You're a fool if you think of it any different, time to face reality."

The hiss of calming down and burning tobacco was all there conversation there was after that as they sat in the emptiness, one cigarette, two, three.

"Akihito, if you can't trust me with your life as I trust you, then get out now and never show your face again. You're either with me, or without me, no in between anymore."

It must have been a day of revelations after all, because the statement so obvious left him reeling, of course he _trusted_ Asami, he always had, why would it change all because he had evidence of what he already knew? It'd been Akihito who was the one doing the deceiving all this time, and the notion of ending this fucked up thing between them hurt far more than a quick painful death would have. Which led him to his next truth, if someone had targeted Asami then Akihito was _glad_ they were dead. Glad in a way that made Akihito understand the frenzy that Asami had unleashed, because if it were them or Asami, Akihito would choose to have others die a thousand times over in order to save that one man.

Sapped of energy and any other coherent thought other than _staying_ , he slumped against the wall to watch Asami's back once more. "You can't get rid of me that easily, Asami."

The powerful frame shook with amusement Asami chuckled and relaxed, he'd been tense throughout the silene, Akihito realized.

"I see, then welcome to the abyss, Akihito."


End file.
